Bully
by danahscott
Summary: "A couple of bruises isn't a big deal, Farkle kept thinking to himself in class. It's just a couple of bruises, you can't even see them." Or, Farkle realizes that getting bullied is a lot harder in high school - and he doesn't want his friends to know.
1. Chapter 1

_A couple of bruises isn't a big deal_ , Farkle kept thinking to himself in class. _It's just a couple of bruises, you can't even see them_. He felt a bead of sweat drip off his eyebrow and onto his hand. They were having an Indian summer. Just when it started to get cool again, they were hit with an eighty degree week and the school's air conditioning was busted. Farkle winced, accidentally brushing a particularly nasty bruise against his desk.

"Class, work quietly at your desk," Mr. Matthews said. "Farkle, can I speak with you please?" Farkle snuck a furtive glance at Riley whose eyebrows were furrowed in worry. He wordlessly followed Mr. Matthews into the hallway, ignoring the atmosphere of curiosity already brewing in the classroom.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" He asked, warily. This was Mr. Matthews, for crying out loud. He's not the "take students out into the hall for a personal issue" type. He's the "write personal issue on the board and confront it head on" type. So, this might be serious.

"Are you alright, Farkle?" Farkle blinked back at him, taken by surprise a little bit. He nodded his head instinctively. "Are you sure? You don't seem like yourself. I've been hearing in my other classes - rumors, maybe - about you and a senior." Farkle nodded, gravely.

"There are people bigger than me here. I learned that my first week." Mr. Matthews shifted on his feet and shook his head, seemingly confused.

"Yes, but Farkle, that's a lesson for _you_ , so you can get stronger, learn more. It's not an excuse for someone twice your size to be giving you a hard time."

"I'm fine, sir," he lied, holding his arm behind his back and wishing he wore longer sleeves. "Nobody is giving me a hard time about anything." He tried to make his face a blank slate, free of emotion. Mr. Matthews didn't look convinced, though.

"If I hear anything, Farkle, just one thing, I'm going to get involved. But for now, I'll take your word for it." He swung open the door, and Farkle, grateful for an out, slid into his chair, letting out a long breath. Maya turned around and looked at him quizzically, but he pretended not to notice. He was pretending a lot these days.


	2. Chapter 2

At Topanga's, he could breathe. At Topanga's he didn't have to worry about Jeff. But when he sat down and banged his shoulder against the chair, it took a great deal of effort not to react to the sharp pain shooting up his arm.

"Farkle," Maya said, grabbing her napkin and dousing it in water. "Come help me with something. Outside." Riley looked at him, same worried expression as before, but Farkle wordlessly nodded, following her to the tables outside. "Okay," she said, draping the wet napkin across her hand. "I can tell when somebody's covering up a bruise with concealer and you didn't even do that good a job, so do you want to tell me what's going on?" Farkle could feel himself blanche.

"I'm not covering up anything." Then, after a beat, "how do you know about the concealer thing?" Maya shrugged, switching the napkin to her right hand.

"Doesn't matter. But if you don't actually have a bruise, then you won't mind if I-" Maya took the dripping napkin, gliding it smoothly over the bruise - but it still hurt. She stepped back, arms folded, eyebrows raised. Farkle rubbed the heel of his hand over the bruise, taking off half the makeup he snuck from his mom's cabinet. "Who did it?"

"Maya-"

"I'll kill him. I mean it, I'll kill him." Farkle sighed, running his hands through his hair. "Who did it?" She asked him again.

"It's just… some senior. His name is Jeff. I got his spot on the debate team and… he wasn't happy. It's nothing, he'll stop." Farkle could practically see the anger in Maya's eyes flare up again.

"It's happened more than once? And it's a senior? Farkle, we have to tell somebody. I swear to god-"

"Maya, please." He interrupted her. She paused and looked at him. Farkle could see her almost deflate, taking a few deep breaths. She looked down at her hands.

"Okay. Sorry. Well, first things first, we're not telling Lucas. Because you know how he gets. But we are going to tell Riley." Farkle grimaced, sitting down at the table. What if that only made Jeff madder? He knew arguing was futile, so he didn't say anything as Maya went back into Topanga's, grabbed Riley and came back out.

"What, Maya? What's so important - _Farkle_? Where'd you get that bruise? Maya, what did you-" Farkle cut her off.

"It was some senior. But it's really, really not a big deal, okay? It's getting late. I think I should go home." He shifted the weight of his backpack on his shoulders, turned on his heel and started towards the subway. He ignored the calls of Riley and Maya behind him and hoped that when he woke up the next morning, everything would have blown over.


	3. Chapter 3

He should have known that wasn't going to be the case. Jeff pushed him against the brick wall, harder than before. "Your friend came to talk to me today," he said, and Farkle felt his heart clambering up his throat. "This blonde chick. Acting really tough, too, but I think a black eye is enough to scare her off, what do _you_ think?" Farkle felt his heart rate rising, anger flashing in his eyes. He wasn't going to sit and take it today. Coming after him is one thing, but coming after his friends is another. With all the power he could muster, he shoved Jeff off of him, throwing a punch.

When he heard Jeff laughing, that's when he knew he screwed up. He felt a sharp blow to his gut, and then another to his nose. He cowered beneath him on the ground, preparing for another kick." And that's when he heard Riley shrieking.

"Stop it!" She cried, racing towards the two of them. "Stop hurting him!" Farkle pushed himself up off the ground, rubbing a sleeve over his nose. It was a wonder it wasn't bleeding.

"Oh, come _on_ , Farkle. First the blonde one, now her? I think you need better backup." He turned, stalking towards Riley and Farkle called out for him to stop, for her to run, for something to just _stop_. He watched as Jeff raised a fist and clenched his jaw.

"My Uncle John's superintendent of schools and my dad's the head of the history department. Are you sure you want to do that?" She yelled, and Farkle started to rush over, rush to her side, no longer frozen in fear. "You hit me, and you're guaranteed expulsion. But if you walk away now, we could forget all about this." Jeff sauntered back a little bit, bravado fading. Farkle got to Riley's side, grabbing her arm, trying to tug her away but she stood her ground. For one moment, he really thought Jeff might hit her, but he turned away walking slowly, muttering curse words under his breath.

"Riley. Riley, that was - you didn't have to -" Riley cut him off with a little laugh.

"I know. Also, don't worry, we're not forgetting about anything. Uncle John already knows, and he's talking to the principal about it right now. I just didn't want matching black eyes with Maya." Farkle shook his head a little bit, remembering that she got hurt.

"Is she okay? What happened?" Riley bit her lip and looked down, nodding.

"Yeah, she's in the nurse's office. Lucas took her. Honestly, if Maya wasn't hurt, he would have killed that guy. She convinced him to walk with her."

"She does have a way with him, yeah." Riley slung an arm around Farkle's neck. Farkle hesitated, and then leaned into it, even though she was rubbing right against a big bruise. But those would fade. They would all fade. Him and his friends though, that would last forever.


	4. Chapter 4

Thank you guys so much for reading! If you want to leave any requests, leave some comments below and I will get to them as soon as possible! Check back soon for a very angsty multi-chaptered riarkle fic!


	5. Maya's Black Eye

Maya was running. Because he was just standing there laughing like an idiot and he was hurting Farkle and _nobody_ hurts Farkle. She got there just in time for his girlfriend to leave, so it was only the two of them left.

"Jeff!" Maya yelled out at him, and his girlfriend turned around at the noise, eyebrows raised in question.

"It's nothing, babe. Just a freshman," he said, and she shrugged, turning around and heading to class. Maya grimaced, trying to come up with what to say next. She forgot to _think_ , like always, she just acted on her impulses, but he was here in front of her, head tilted mockingly, and so she had to do something. With every ounce of strength in her body - which didn't seem like a lot in comparison to him - she shoved him back. His shoulders swayed, taken by surprise, and then he bounced back just as easily.

"What the hell?" He half-shouted, half-whispered.

"That's for Farkle," she said, and she went to shove him again, but he grabbed her wrists and pulled her closer to him. His breath smelled like cigarettes and orange juice, and Maya fought the urge to gag. "Get off me," she cried, and he grabbed her wrists tighter, so she decided maybe to just shut up and listen to him. She could hear footsteps around, and she hoped someone could see, someone who would _do_ something.

"What do you think you're gonna do about it? Hm?" He said, menacingly, and Maya want to punch herself. It was _such_ a stupid, stupid idea. But then again, he might punch her first. His eyes flickered up, as if seeing something, so he let her go and she fell to the ground, rubbing her wrists. And then, she was _pissed_ because of everything he was doing. She was so pissed so she grabbed a rock, the first one she saw and she hurled it at him, but it lost momentum - he was already far away, so it just barely grazed the back of his leg.

Jeff whirled around, fury in his eyes, and he charged at her, just as she was pushing herself off the ground and then she felt his fist smash into her face, and then she was on the ground again, and she heard those footsteps, running closer, closer, and there was shouting and yelling and she wanted them to shut up, because everything _hurt_. Wavy lines swam across her vision and then, like someone flipped a switch everything came glaringly into focus.

And then, oh god, she had to get up, because it was _Lucas_ and he could get expelled and she had to get off the ground and stop him. So she did get up. She pushed her aching body off the ground, and as soon as she was standing, she felt herself swaying, but before she could hit the ground again, strong arms were around her waist steadying her. And then, once Maya was sure she had her wits about her and her feet planted firmly on the ground, Lucas grabbed her shoulders and she could hear him asking if she was okay, but a hand was still pressed to her eye, and she thought it was swelling up.

"Maya!" She heard him yell, and things got sharper again, until the fuzziness of was almost completely gone.

"Lucas, let's go," she whispered to him. Jeff was slowly but surely backing away. He didn't want to fight, but he didn't want to seem like a wimp either. And then Lucas turned around and saw Jeff leaving, and he was about to go after so Maya wrapped her hand around his arm. He turned back to her, and with her good eye, Maya saw him soften. "It's not worth getting expelled over, okay?"  
"Yeah," he said, "it is." But he didn't leave, he stayed with her. "C'mon, let's get you to the nurse." He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and she almost reminded him that it was her eye that hurt, not her leg, but she decided not to mention it. Actually, her leg did kinda hurt from when she fell.

But it felt good while everything else felt bad, so she leaned into him a little bit. Not a lot, not enough for him to think anything of it, but enough so that she'd know he was going to stay right by her side the whole way. She'd think of what she'd tell the nurse later. She'd figure out a new plan for helping Farkle later. Right now, all she wanted to think about was how nice it felt in his arms.


	6. a note to the fandom

okay i am so sorry to be that person who's being all annoying and stuff but i want to let you know: i am not signing off. i will still write fic and make edits and if anyone wants to message me and fangirl about this great show then i will be right along with you. there's also a petition for netflix that may not do anything (but it's worth a try and it worked for degrassi) and i suggest you all sign it! but know this. i am still here. i am still with all of you. and even if every other voice in the fandom dies out, i will still be here screaming and yelling like we did when this show was on the air. i love you all and i look forward to writing more fanfiction for you.


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